In the past, heat deformable products have been used to hold items together, i.e. a bundle of wire or to protect the surface of some article to allow for a better grip, i.e. a handlebar. All of these objectives were achieved by placing a heat shrinkable tube about the article and applying heat to cause the tube to shrink and conform tightly about the article.
However, there have been certain objectives to which such shrinkable tubing would lend itself except for the fact that, although the tube shrinks snuggly about the article, it does not result in a water-tight or dust-tight seal.
The use of a melt liner bonded to the shrinkable tube which, upon heating of the tube (and thereby causing it to shrink about the article) caused the melt liner to flow in an attempt to fill the voids and seal the article within the shrunken tubing is known. The current hot melt lined shrink tubing, however, has a hot melt liner which is partially cross-linked. This results in a product which, due to the partial cross-linking, does not flow easily upon the shrinking of the tube about an article, causing incomplete filling of the voids and therefore incomplete sealing.
Therefore, what is needed in this art is a heat deformable article having a melt liner which flows easily and uniformly resulting in a more complete sealing of the article in the tube.